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and the manner of their transmission. As to extension, they were no longer communicated as previously to the generality of Christians. They were now bestowed only upon the few, upon those chosen souls who, still preserving the primitive spirit of Christianity, lived in heart and affection, and frequently in person also, detached from the world, and who sought God in purity of spirit. "As to the manner of transmission," because the Holy Ghost, when communicated to souls by the imposition of hands in the sacrament of Confirmation, did not now give those external signs of His presence which He had done at the beginning, by the appearance of fiery tongues, or by bestowing the gift of languages. These were necessary while the Church continued under the pressure of persecution; but that necessity was now past, and therefore, though the communication of the Divine Spirit, and the confirming and strengthening those who receive Him, will continue to the end of time to be the neverfailing effect of the sacrament of Confirmation in the worthy receiver, yet this is now done in an invisible manner, without the exterior signs which were given in the early ages.

VI. That this is the true nature of the cessation of miracles acknowledged by the holy fathers of the fourth age is evident from the express declaration of St Augustine. This great saint having, in different parts of his writings, mentioned this, and being well aware what use the enemies of the Church would make of such an acknowledgment, thought it necessary, in his book of Re-. tractations, to explain his meaning more precisely, which he does as follows:

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"What I also said, that those miracles were not allowed to continue to our times, lest the soul should always seek after things visible, and mankind should

wax cold by their frequency who had been inflamed by their novelty, is certainly true. For when hands are laid on the baptised, they do not receive the Holy Ghost now in such a manner as to speak with the tongues of all nations, nor are the sick now cured by the shadow of Christ's preachers as they pass by them, and others such as these, which it is manifest did afterwards cease: But what I said is not so to be understood, as if no miracles were believed to be performed now in the name of Christ For I myself, when I wrote that very book, knew that a blind man had received his sight in the city of Milan, at the bodies of the Milanese martyrs, and several others besides; nay, such numbers are performed in these our days, that I neither can know them all, nor, though I knew them, could I enumerate them: " St. Aug. Retract., lib. 1. cap. 13. § 7.

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From this passage it is evident, that the fact spoken of by the holy Fathers of the fourth century regards only the extension and visible signs of the communication of the charismatic graces, when the Holy Ghost was received by the imposition of hands after baptism, or some of those more extraordinary miracles which were performed in the days of the apostles, such as curing the sick by their shadow, and the like. But though in this sense they acknowledge a cessation, they no less strenuously assert the continuation of the gift of miracles, and its actual exercise in numberless instances in their own days, to many of which they themselves were eyewitnesses.

VII. Hence, then, the question concerning the continuance of miracles in the Church is only with regard to these latter. We do not inquire whether the Holy Ghost continues now to be communicated at Confirmation, with those visible signs of His presence, the appear

ance of fiery tongues, speaking languages, and the like, which He displayed at the beginning; nor whether these and the other graces above mentioned be now indiscriminately bestowed on all the faithful. It is plain that this is not the case; and it is acknowledged by all that a cessation of these took place before, or about the beginning of, the fourth century. But the question is, Whether or not Almighty God has in every age of the Church, down to these our days, raised up from time to time holy persons, whom He has replenished with His Divine Spirit, and by whom He has been pleased, on many occasions, to perform miracles for ends of the same nature, or similar to those, for which He performed miracles by His holy servants, in every period of the Jewish dispensation?

This is the precise state of the question; and that Almighty God has actually done so, is what I have now to prove. But it will throw light upon the question, and show still further its importance, if we first take a view of the manner in which it has been treated by Dr Middleton and his Protestant antagonists, according to the different systems which they have advocated.

VIII. The Doctor everywhere professes the highest veneration for the Protestant religion, and assures us, towards the close of his introductory discourse, that his design in his work against the continuation of miracles, is to fix the religion of Protestants on its proper basis; that is, on the sacred Scriptures. For these he professes the greatest regard, and on the credit of their testimony firmly believes all the miracles related in them, however great and amazing. He acknowledges, of course, that the power of working miracles was bestowed on the apostles, and on others during the lives of the apostles, but insists that it ceased entirely upon their death, and

never more appeared in the Christian world; and the whole tendency of his inquiry is to prove as a consequence of this opinion, "that the pretended miracles of the primitive Church were all mere fictions." Disc., p. lxxviii. edit. Lond. 1755.

Introd.

The motives which induced the Doctor to adopt this opinion were chiefly these: he found that many of the doctrines and practices which Protestants condemn as corruptions of Popery, were clearly taught by the Christian writers of the primitive ages, and he enumerates several manifest and striking examples in different parts of his Introductory Discourse. He saw that if true miracles were admitted to have been wrought in a Church which taught and practised these things, the things themselves could not be condemned; and therefore he concluded it was absolutely necessary for the support of the Protestant religion that no such miracles should be admitted. Besides, he was aware that if miracles in the first ages were admitted upon the credit of human testimony notwithstanding these doctrines and practices, it would be ridiculous to deny them in after ages, if equally well attested, merely because they were done in favour of the same or similar doctrines. Consequently, to allow their existence in one age of the Church upon human testimony laid him under an inevitable necessity of admitting them on the same ground even to the present time; and therefore he again concludes it to be impossible that the Protestant religion can stand or be defended if the existence of miracles be allowed even for one single age after the death of the apostles. This is evident throughout his Preface and Introductory Discourse, particularly from the following passages.

In the Preface, page v., he says, the general approbation which the Introductory Discourse met with "from

those whose authority I chiefly value, has given me the utmost encouragement to persevere in the prosecution of my argument, as being of the greatest importance to the Protestant religion, and the sole expedient which can effectually secure it from being gradually undermined and finally subverted by the efforts of Rome." In his Introductory Discourse he begins by observing the advantage which the Roman Church takes of the belief of a continuation of miracles in her communion, and states that his system is the result of inquiry into the grounds of this belief. "This system," says he, " by the most impartial judgment that I am able to form, I take not only to be true, but useful also, and even necessary to the defence of Christianity, as it is generally received, and ought always to be defended, in Protestant Churches."

IX. A few pages after he gives an account of the motives which induced him to undertake this work. "I found myself particularly excited to this task by what I had occasionally observed and heard of the late growth of Popery in this kingdom, and the great number of Popish books which have been printed and dispersed among us within these few years; in which their writers make much use of that prejudice in favour of primitive antiquity, which prevails even in this Protestant country, towards drawing weak people into their cause, and showing their worship to be the best, because it is the most conformable to that ancient pattern. But the most powerful of all their arguments, and what gains them the most proselytes, is, their confident attestation of miracles, as subsisting still in their Church, and the clear succession of them, which they deduce through all history, from the apostolic times down to our own. This their apologists never fail to display with all the force of their rhetoric, and with good reason; since it is a proof,

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